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- June 29, 2005 -

Approval for President Bush is now at 45%, down two percent since May, and is only one percent above what approval was for Nixon at the height of Watergate. Bush gave a speech tonight, so it is projected that his polls will rise some... it was a good speech I thought, though I just watched wee parts- it was free of major errors or "Bushisms" though. The speech made several references to 9/11 and Iraq, and most people view such statements as one of the false reasons that led us into the war.

After the President's address... well, mostly during, I took a nice nap, and then I went out and repotted some lilies. I put them in the aquarium, but they had grown to a pretty good size, but they were still smaller than what was in the water garden, so I thought having lily pads of a greater variety of size would be nice.

- June 27, 2005 -

I slept in this morning and got up at 9... but I also went to bed earlier, and it'd seem like I had enough sleep and I'd wake up, but then I ponder: "If I just lay here I bet I could go back to sleep." and it seemed like I did that several times. I think it's good to catch up on the missed sleep every once and a while though. Once I finally got up, I did two miles in the treadmill- it's been months since I've used the treadmill, and with the upcoming hiking trip I pondered it would be good to not get winded. After lunch I went down to the humane society and walked all the dogs, most of which are very large and energetic, and it was certainly very hot today.

- June 23, 2005 -

I'm taking tomorrow off to catch up on things, It's also Teresa's birthday, so I must bid her the happiest of days. Tonight I had karate, it seems to get more difficult, and I'm not sure when I became so inflexible.. I guess I've spent too many years at the computer, because I need to work on stretching a lot more. This weekend I must work, but other than that I do not have any painting or jobs, so instead I will work on my portfolio, cleaning, working on my computers, and perhaps painting some around the homestead.

- June 21, 2005 -

Tonight on 27 news they had Mr. Ford on, the science and astronomy teacher at Holton High School... Holton now has the largest observatory run by a high school in the United States- They've actually had it for some time, but I never knew how it ranked before tonight.

- June 20, 2005 -

Super busy I've been! ....Sometimes I don't blog cause I'm doing too much, and other times there's just nothing going on, so I really have nothing to say. Today I went and worked with Alex Fredericksen on Lin's water garden to make a small pond that has a waterfall in it, that flows into her larger pond. After that I put in an hour at work, and then Brent, Teresa and I went and did a photo shoot in the park... it was just a small shoot, but on Saturday we had a huge one Saturday, and it was just horrible, everything that could go wrong did. Sunday Teresa and I went back to Matt & Judy's to paint on the fence more.

- June 14, 2005 -

Today I got up at 6am, a wee bit earlier than I'm use to, and considering I stayed up till three working on some things, I'm not too tired though. I went and got my hair cut this morning and after that I took some pictures of the kitties. They are almost two months old now. The water garden is getting more lily pads, around thirty now, and has two flowers.

- June 14, 2005 -

There's nothing like an important project to get me motivated to do everything else. I did get some work done on my portfolio- I took all the pages out of it and started to reprint some things, some things I'll leave out, and I've been going through my hard drive to add in some more recent projects. In addition to that to procrastinate working on it, I cleaned out the cat room, vacuumed the stairs, and shampooed all the carpets yesterday. I also went over and helped Betty with her computer.

Tonight on Nova there was an interesting program on world population and the great shift that is currently underway. Modern countries around the world are about to see a great decline: Japan's current population of 126 million by the end of the century will have fallen to only 63 million... the reasons of this are many and differ around the world. The main reason is that women in the modern world now have fewer children, the average for Japan is 1.3 children per female, and so many Japanese are waiting until very late in life to start a family. In the developing world a population explosion is in the works as the life expectancy is rising, but many families are still having six or more children. India is trying to take steps to slow rampant overpopulation, but is now only down to 4.3 children per female, which is still very high. The United States is the only modern country to not be in decline, though we now have fewer than 2 children per female, immigration makes up for our loss.

- June 13, 2005 -

Today I got up rather late, I guess I stayed up late too.... I updated my online portfolio a little as I work on my real one some- so much I need to do to the real one though...

Michael Jackson was cleared of all the charges against him today... What will they talk about in the news now?

- June 12, 2005 -

Sunday morning, rain is falling... no painting today I guess. It let up around noon here, so I went down to the humane society and cleared some trees that had fallen out of the creek area and were giving Dad some problems when he mowed down there. I ponder it would be an excellent place for a nature trail- but it take the planting of a great number of trees, as their lot is mostly a big field, with trees just running along the periphery of the property. When it started to rain again I went in and took pictures of the dogs they needed to get on Petfinder.

Assimilation of immigrants was the sticking point for the Dutch, who rejected the EU constitution recently. Immigrants and new member nations of poorer countries like Turkey are extremely inflexible to the liberal lifestyle there, who the Dutch see as a threat if too many become part of their culture.

- June 11, 2005 -

It was a productive day, I went to work as it was the first Saturday of the pay period, and it was really quite busy. Over lunch it slowed down quite a bit, but the patrons all came back. I only had a bit of scanning to do, so I did the interlibrary loans, made boxes, re shelved film... The patrons hit the film today mostly- there was a lady in today that had driven in all the way from Denver just to come research.

After work I mowed the yard, I ponder I'll paint some parts of the house and garage soon. I also gathered some of my stuff to start re-working my portfolio some.

Tonight there was a fascinating program on the National Geographic Channel on possible alien life, like if a planet had a higher percentage of oxygen and less nitrogen in its atmosphere, the air would be much more dense- this thick atmosphere could allow very large animals to develop the ability to fly, creatures even as large as whales.

- June 7, 2005 -

Tuesday, I went to work today, it was a pretty nominal day- always something to do. I came home to the air conditioner being on.... Somehow I get off worse with the AC on as the computer room is the highest room in the house (a couple steps up from the rest of the upstairs) And though my bedroom is super cool, I have a most difficult time getting the cool air to go up those two steps and stay. I've got three fans working on it now.

Before my water garden restoration I had started to read Darwin's "The Origin of Species" as there was a huge debate going on in Topeka over Evolution v. Intelligent Design. I've been pondering evolution at work in my very own pond, be it very small, I can still see the process at work. Currently we have 26 goldfish in it... and they all started two years ago from four fantail goldfish. If you don't know about fantails, they kinda have two tails side by side, but three generations after the original four fish, only about a third of the fish have the dual tail fins. A third of the fish have single tails just like a normal goldfish, and the remaining third have tails that are somewhere in between single and double, and have a single on the top half, and dual on the bottom half. I ponder given a few more years fantailed goldfish will be pretty rare in the pond... Fantails tend to be rounder and their bulky tails make them slower, which would lead to them being eaten when they are small, and the faster ones would be able to get more food, grow larger, and have more fry each reproductive cycle. I ponder the fantail was the product of some type of mutation, that breeders have cultured to keep going, and that it's a fairly recent thing, as their offspring still readily revert to being normal goldfish rather quickly unless action is taken to remove the non-fantails from the population. Another interesting characteristic of goldfish are the white ones. White goldfish crop up somewhat frequently. Our four original fantails were totally orange, but we have five or six goldfish today with white spots, and one is totally white.

- June 5, 2005 -

It was a very productive day for me- I finished the water garden, though I have to get some river rock to put down in a couple places, but other than that it's very happy. I also cleaned out my aquarium, and boy was it a mess. I also did some random organizing, and I made a big list of things to get done this weekend. This evening I took some pictures of the water garden- there are no lily pads quite yet, but a frog has returned already. I'm not sure where the frogs went, they must have gotten angry at me for trying to catch them when I was draining the pond, but at least one is now back.

How the mighty have fallen; After its second week of being open Star Wars placed third at the box office. The animated film "Madagascar" came in first, and "The Longest Yard" took second place.

Vice President Cheney said today that Iraq was in the "last throws of the insurgency." He made it seems as if the war would be over soon.

Secretary Rumsfeld today warmed China to stop spending on weapons- that "it was pouring huge resources into its military and buying large amounts of sophisticated weapons despite facing no threat." The Chinese were quick to state that the US is not the only country to be threaten, and that Rumsfelt acted as if he was threatened by the emergence of China. It was also pointed out on CNN today that this year the United States exceeded all other nations combined in military spending, and that it was a little silly for Rumsfeld to attack China on the grounds they were spending too much. I do see China as a threat though; as they are focusing a good deal of their military toward a possible attack on Taiwan if they ever try to declare independence.

- June 2, 2005 -

The water garden is getting more together- Images will come soon once it's complete. I had karate tonight, but cut it a little short to work on the plants, and tomorrow I'm going to take in some more plants for people... and I still have more lily tubers if anyone wants them.

This weekend I have a photo shoot with Brent and Teresa, and Brent also asked us go with him to stay at his families' cabin in Colorado in the end of June and start of July. I've never been to Colorado before.